Requests for pictures will now be honored

There have been several requests for pictures of my trip home. Some wanted to see the dress. Some wanted to see baby Luke. I wanted to share the attic incident.

Rehearsal Dinner, Thursday Night

First off, the rehearsal dinner was nice. It helps that I knew almost everyone there. My first two bosses (the older brother and sister in law of the groom) were there. Aunt Elaine, a nun who has gotten me into considerable trouble was also there. (Heh heh, fun with nuns.) I was also happy to learn I knew the groomsman who was going to escort me. I'd worked with him for a long time and he's a really nice guy. I'd also had a pretty obvious crush on him for several years. Luckily that was long ago enough that it wasn't awkward for him to escort me down the aisle in a wedding.

Partners in Crime Aunt Elaine and I

There's the bride! She looked really fantastic at the rehearsal and the wedding.


Jenny and her bridesmaids. We're calling this our "more bars in more places" pose because we're lined up by height. (I think I'm the only one not wearing heals. Jenny's still shorter.)

That's Tony, the groomsman who escorted me.

Friday: Attic Cleaning

The next day, Friday, began the attic cleaning. It was really quite a traumatic experience. And really sad. I told my mom I could sort of trace her OCD over the years by looking at things in the attic. I started off with the easy room. It was only easy because part of the crap in there was mine from caving and half the stuff in the room didn't even belong to us. It was also the room where I kept the most stuff, old antiques that Mom thought may be valuable. I cleaned the floor and covered them with sheets.

And then I went into the bowling alley. The pictures are deceptive because I really did a lot of work. This day we made two full recycling trips and filled about half of a dumpster. There's a recycling dumpster at the school that anyone in the neighborhood can use. (I wish we just rented one. It might come to that.) We had to stop though because we met the realtor to see the new condo.

During the cleaning, I was also reminded how bad my allergies are when I go to Cincinnati. (What allergies? I know, I only have them there.) I wore a rag over my face the whole time I was cleaning and ditched the contacts at the end of the weekend even though they were brand new. The handkerchief over the face resulted in an hilarious incident at the local dumpster when I forgot I was wearing it.

We lovingly refer to this as "the bowling alley" but what we really mean in trash heap. I think the top is actually Mike and Linda's and the bottom is our side. At least in this, my parents are not alone.



The clean version of the "easy" room. It actually looks really good. I got rid of a lot of stuff.


Remember the trip to the dumpster. Currently Mom's OCD shows itself in her having to wear gloves. She has really sensitive, dry skin and it breaks out all the time, which is why she says she has to wear gloves. I think it also has to do with the frequency that she washes her hands. It's less when she can just wash the gloves. Normally I think it's weird but today I totally agree. You can actually see how dirty they are in the picture.

Friday: Spaghetti

The reward for all the cleaning and running up and down four stories came Friday night when I got to eat spaghetti see my family. (Yeah, they're more important than the food. Sure.)

John's dog Mocha.


John, for future reference, when you take pictures of yourself like this and leave them as a "gift" on my camera, my way of thanking you will be to post them to the internet.


Jen and Luke.


Is it wrong that I have so many pictures of people taking pictures? I find it hilarious.


Here are some nice ones to enjoy.

Saturday: The Wedding and Reception

Saturday was pretty much consumed by the wedding. I got my hair cut (the last time that happened was right before Kelly's wedding) and an up-do. The ceremony was around 1:30 and then we spend the next three hours (no, seriously) taking pictures. We got to go some behind the scenes places at Union Terminal since 90% of the wedding party does or did work there at one time. The photographer loved it because it's an historic building and he normally doesn't get that kind of access. We were some cool places. The reception was fun. It turned out that I gave a toast. It was really short but I'm glad I got to say something.

The up-do.

Michelle, me and Laura, the three bridesmaids.

Jenny's Grandma. She's really nice.
Hey, look who's married.
In the limo. That might be one of the best shots of what the dress looked like.

Inside the old executive office at Union Terminal. This wood relief etching is what the building actually looks like. It holds three museums, two traveling exhibit galleries, the historical library and the art gallery. It's gigantic.

No one knows why Jenny needed help drinking water. On the wedding day, we don't ask.
This one is also at Union Terminal.

At the reception.

Sunday: Attic Part II

On Sunday I had mild success with the attic. There's still one room and a cedar closet that need to be addressed, but the monster bowling alley has been addressed. I kept going through these boxes of books that we had to recycle. Inevitably there would be a bible hidden deep down. It's like all the boxes were booby trapped. I left the stack of bibles for someone else to deal with. It didn't feel right for me to be the one to deal with those.

Still wearing that scarf.

Oh look, floors and a wall. I didn't know those were there. Is there any explanation I could give for the toilet sitting there?

Sunday Night: Flying Home

And finally, two hilarious airport "fails". One is a signage fail from Cincinnati (like there's not a better way to phrase that?). The other, look closely and you'll see what appears to be blue tape on the door. Of the airplane.